Colin vs Collins
American parents have registered 134,151 Colins since 1880, against 14,465 Collinses. But in 2025 it was Collins that was commoner, 1,334 babies to 950.
Babies given each name, 1880–2025
Colin Collins
Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.
Who was ahead
Of the 143 years in which either name was published, Colin for 113 years and Collins for 30 years. The lead changed hands 13 times.
- 1885–1887 Colin ahead
- 1891–1895 Collins ahead
- 1896–1898 Colin ahead
- 1899–1915 Collins ahead
- 1916–2021 Colin ahead, apart from one short spell
- 2022–2025 Collins ahead
7 shorter spells of a year or two are folded into the spans above rather than listed separately.
Side by side
| Colin | Collins | |
|---|---|---|
| Total US births | 134,151 | 14,465 |
| Most in one year | 5,147 | 1,334 |
| Babies in 2025 | 950 | 1,334 |
| Estimated living today | 127,000 | 13,000 |
| Median age today | 24 | 5 |
| Peak year | 2004 | 2025 |
| Best rank | 85th boys | 241st girls |
| Rank in 2025 | 343rd | 241st |
| First recorded | 1880 | 1881 |
| Girls / boys | 445 / 133,706 | 10,779 / 3,686 |
A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.
Which name is older
Half of the Colins alive today are over 24; half the Collinses are over 5. That is 19 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.
Where each one is strongest
- Colin New Hampshire (2.5×), Massachusetts (2.0×), Connecticut (2.0×)
- Collins Alabama (3.0×), Nebraska (2.8×), Utah (2.5×)
How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.
Both names abroad
Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.
| Country | Colin | Collins |
|---|---|---|
| France | 6,760 | 80 |
| Ireland | 6,714 | 9 |
| England and Wales | 1,329 | 79 |
Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.
Compare something else
Related comparisons
Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Colin and Collins.